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THE POLITICAL CONTRIBUTION OF ALBANIAN WRITERS IN DEFINING ALBANIAN IDENTITY: THE DEBATE BETWEEN ISMAIL KADARE AND REXHEP QOSJA
No full textThis paper will explore some elements of the contested notion of Albanian identity through a short analysis of the thesis put forward by the Albanian prominent writer, Ismail Kadare. Kadare claims that Albania belongs to the European family, and the Ottoman ‘barbarians’ unjustly ‘removed’ Albania from Europe for five centuries. His main opposing voice, Kosovar academic, Rexhep Qosja, rejects Kadare’s Albanian identity interpretation. In contrast to Kadare, Qosja argues that the Albanian identity has more similarities with Oriental-Eastern culture, and therefore, does not reflect Europe. Religious controversy is present on both sides. The paper will explore how expansive contribution of both Albanian writers, while appreciated, has also been instrumental in defining the Albanian identity. The Kadare-Qosja argument is the overarching question with regards to Albanian identity, which is still polarising Albanians. After a short analysis of the Kadare-Qosja debate, this paper will emphasise some opinions of the Albanian analysts, media, writers and politicians. The paper will then conclude with some remarks, as Kadare, Qosja, and others need to constructively debate the Albanian identity question and avoid drawing on personal differences between the two; which for obvious reasons do exist
The Code of the Administrative Procedures according to the Principle of the Power Separation and Balancing in the Central and Local Government Bodies in Albania
Get PDFDifferent authors at different times have given an unequal definition to the term of public administration compared to what it is used today. The author Georges Vestel has defined the public administration as “the set of activities aimed at maintaining the public peace and meeting other needs of the general interest. This definition corresponds to the etymology of the term administration - “administration” which means “to serve”. But Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his work, Social Charter, defined the public administration under the government term. He stated that: “I call a government or a supreme administration the legitimate exercise of the executive power. Some authors use “administrative” and “executive” terms in an alternate way, with the same meaning. Other authors make a clear distinction between terms. They define the state administration as “an activity which is carried out for the concrete fulfilment of the functions of the state and the duties of the organs of the state administration”. So these authors distinguish the state administration from the executive activity which the executive bodies perform. The paper aims to suggest a set of strategies and improvements by starting from a theoretical background of the definition of power balance and separation in public administration and governing bodies and its evolutionary definition over time, and by reflecting those findings as a set of suggestions, by considering the actual Albanian Code of Administrative procedures, strategies and practices
Gender Wage Differential in Albania
Get PDFThis study aims at providing a. gender-sensitive approach which determines the factors contributing to gender wage inequalities in the Albanian case, through which there is going to be provided a general picture of the situation for these years. This study is being conducted for the first time in Albania for the 2008-2012 year period.
This study provides data and information about the gaps that exist in wages in Albania. Data are represented through figures and tables, which make it easier to be understood, as well as creates a clearer picture of the current situation. Conclusions and recommendations are used to address the problems that exist and to give a contribution to closing the gender wage gap that exists in Albania
Albania and the teaching of religion in schools
Get PDFMulticulturalism and the new multi religious social realities are becoming dominant dimensions of today’s world. The huge changes in the social tissue of those societies, which up to now had an established dominant culture and religious affiliation, made them now face more than the effects of migrant flows, which inevitably causes confrontations of cultures and believes. The clash of civilizations, which have been so accurately predicted, took different forms of confrontation by giving floor to extremism into its organized form: an explosion of terrorism. By considering the strong connections between poverty and lack of education as an extremism cradle, many researchers consider the inclusion of the subjects related to the history and culture of religions as a strategy to reduce cultural and religious conflict as well as extremist behavior and the bases of terrorism, by increasing information and knowledge about religion starting from early teen years. Albania, a country known for its religious tolerance, is one of those countries which’ decision makers in education actually share this point of view and is going to start a project by including a module of limited hours of teaching in medium and high school students. The paper makes an analysis of the potential effects this might have considering its application related to the initial purposes of the project, by introducing the case of Italy and its strategy of religious education over the years as a comparative tool in order to analyze and predict the potential outcomes of this intent, by considering the national background of Albania and some specific learning traits and outcomes on such topics related to age and cultural set up
PRAGMATIC ACTS IN PRE-ELECTION DEBATES: 2012 GUBERNATORIAL CONTEST IN ONDO STATE, NIGERIA
No full textLanguage is an indispensable tool in the human society for it engenders communication, understanding and interaction. In a democratic setting, it propels people to vote, debate or revolt; it is a major determinant of the fate of political office seekers during elections especially in the first world countries. Thus, politicians must strive to use language appropriately to package their programmes in order to garner more votes during elections.
This study aims at examining the effects the utterances of political candidates could have on their audience. The 2012 governorship pre-election debate in Ondo State of Nigeria was used as a case study. The contest was organised by the Nigerian Election Debate Group – a conglomeration of stakeholders in the election. Six political parties participated in the debate but the responses of candidates of the three most prominent parties were considered in this study. The utterances of the participants were transcribed from the video recording of the debate which was sourced from YouTube on the internet and the summary of the utterances is presented in tabular form.
The analysis is based on the speech acts theories of J. L. Austin and John Searle. The utterances were classified into direct and indirect illocutionary acts identified by John Searle. The major findings of the study indicate that political aspirants in their speeches make use of more commissives than other illocutionary acts, and use requesting rather than ordering, an illocutionary act associated with the military. An incumbent leader aspiring to be re-elected makes use of directive illocutionary acts in order to intimate the masses with his past accomplishments, and thereby imploring them to re-vote him into power so that his “good works” may continue. The implications of these findings are that effective language use is strategic to winning elections as it is required to explain political plans and programs; political campaign must be issue-based with convincing evidences that the nitty-gritty of governance is well understood; an incumbent seeking re-election must ensure that he performs creditably in order to make an easy triumph in future contests. In conclusion, the ability of an aspiring political leader to make use of appropriate illocutionary acts can earn him the support of the electorates
HERMENEUTICS AS THE INTERPRETATION OF RELIGION IN CULTURAL CONTEX: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ALBANIAN CULTURE
No full textSociological and philosophical approaches often have been decisive in the study of cultural aspects of religions, imparting to the social disciplines a theoretical basis and the direction in which research should proceed. One of most important field of these approaches is the interpretation of religion and religious texts, which in terms of modern philosophy is entitled as hermeneutics. Hermeneutics has been a root of sociological and philosophical theory of modern interpretation, the theory of achieving an understanding of cultural, holly texts and utterances. As a theory of interpretation, the hermeneutic tradition stretches all the way back to ancient Greek philosophy till nowadays as a sociological interpretation of religion in context of culture. The interpretation and understanding of our life can be related with hermeneutic of holly texts, religion, social and cultural structure of a society. This article is going to focus on and discuss about the hermeneutic as the philosophy of interpretation, hermeneutic and religion, and the interpretation of religion in the cultural context such as Albanian culture
The Bumpy Road of EULEX as an Exporter of Rule of Law in Kosovo
Get PDFThis paper analyses EULEX mission in Kosovo (hereafter EULEX) as an exporter of rule of law. From the deployment of the mission, two mainstream discourses have coined the effectiveness of EULEX establishing the rule of law in Kosovo. From the Brussels point of view, EULEX has marked a lot of progress in promoting the rule of law in Kosovo. On the other hand, based on international indexes and other secondary sources, EULEX has been harshly criticised to deliver its promises in strengthening the rule of law institutions, fighting organised crime, war crimes and reducing corruption. Beyond these discourses, the paper tries to explore whether, how and to what extent, EULEX has promoted rule of law in Kosovo. The paper argues that EULEX has failed to promote rule of law in Kosovo due to 1) the costs of adaptation or compliance as function of the misfit between EULEX institutional approach on rule of law and domestic conditions and 2) incapacity of Kosovo rule of law institutions to interact with EULEX in strengthening the rule of law as a result of political interference on judiciary and police sector
Household Consumption in Albania: A Study of the factors affecting Household Consumption in Albania
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to identify the main factors affecting household consumption during last years in Albania. Some researchers compared Albanian household consumptions with some other countries in our region which showed that mostly we consume food and drinks and then clothes. To define the specified results of this research, variables as adjusted net national per capita, household final consumption expenditure and GDP per capita for countries as Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia are analyzed. These three are the main inputs and sometimes factors which determine the consumption level in a developing country.
According to the data published by INSTAT, Albanian consumption in 2016 recorded an annual growth of 1.65%, far from expanding by 3.1% in the same period last year.
Furthermore, will see the relationship that these factors have with each other and not only. Also how these factors will affect in household consumption. The source for the data was from World Bank and the data were processed with IBM SPSS Statistics 20.
In addition, we will describe products and services which are classified as household consumption. The regression will indicate the test of statistical significance, overall test of significance of the regression parameters and granger causality. On the other hand, the Durbin Watson test states that there is a negative autocorrelation between the time series data.
In the end we will process in analyzing data by using regression analyses and after all we will conclude on required result
The Impact of Deflation in Economy
Get PDFThis study analyzes the effect of deflation on economy. Data includes main macroeconomic indicators such as; GDP growth, interest rate, unemployment rate and inflation which are obtained from International Monetary Fund web page for the period between 1986 and 2013. Deflation in Japan was present for a long-lasting time since the latter half of 1994. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression methods are employed for two sub-periods to highlight the impact of inflation on the Economy of Japan. Estimates of a standard Phillips curve indicate inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment especially during deflation
National Sovereignty Vs. Globalization
Get PDFGlobalization entails the increasing volume, velocity and importance of flows within and across borders of people, ideas, goods, money, and much else, thus challenging one of sovereignty’s basic principles: the ability to control what crosses borders in either direction. Sovereign States increasingly measure their vulnerability not to one another, but to forces beyond their control. Necessity may also lead to reducing or even eliminating sovereignty when a government, whether from a lack of capacity or conscious policy, is unable to provide for the basic needs of its citizens. This reflects a view that state failure and genocide can lead to destabilizing refugee flows and create openings for terrorists to take root. Globalization is frequently discussed as a counterpoint to national sovereignty. It is commonly asserted that globalization has eroded national sovereignty or that it has rendered borders obsolete. In particular, it is asserted that, in a globalized world economy, governments have no alternative but to adopt neoliberal economic policies of privatization, deregulation and reductions in public expenditure. However, in the contest between social democracy and neoliberal globalization, the nation—state per se is only marginally relevant. The crucial issue is whether policy will respond to the wishes of a democratic electorate, or be tightly constrained by the ‘Golden Straightjacket’ of international financial markets